


Shovel Talks

by sunkelles



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Humor, Shovel Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-28 18:03:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3864496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three shovel talks that Arya gave, one Sansa gave, and one that Arya got.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shovel Talks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rachelisnotcool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelisnotcool/gifts).



> RACHEL I FINALLLY WROTE IT!
> 
> Originally a 5+1 fic but then it evolved into this. There are some phone calls and sections other than shovel talks, but shovel talks are the centerpiece of the fic.

1.

 

Mya Stone is the first person, male, female, or nonbinary that Sansa dates after Joffrey Baratheon. She brings her home for a family dinner pretty soon after they start dating. Mother sets an extra place between Sansa and Jon to accommodate her. Mother is thrilled that Sansa is becoming more her old self and getting out there to date. Jon and Mya bond over rock climbing, and by the end of the dinner, even over-protective big brother Robb is convinced that Mya is good for her.

Arya thinks that they’re all a little bit crazy. Sansa obviously doesn’t have all that good of taste in partners, and Arya thinks that it wouldn’t hurt to scare the other girl, just to let her know that they mean business. Mya has a reputation for being a player, and startling her a bit won’t hurt her. It will just make sure that she knows that hurting Sansa will bring terrible misfortune upon her. Maybe if she had given Joffrey the shovel talk, he would have stayed far away from Sansa, and she wouldn’t have had to nurse her sister’s bruises and egg the bastard’s car at three o'clock in the morning. She, Robb and Jon were all dead on their feet for the next week after that.

 

Mya has to leave early, and Arya tries to discretely slip out behind her. If the yard wasn’t illuminated by the street lamp that’s only a house away then it would be pitch black by now. Mya walks from the concrete path onto the driveway, but Arya cuts straight through the grass to deliver her message.

“I’m the hardest hitter on my softball team,” Arya tells her. Mya turns around, and stops trying to enter her car.

“What?” She asks.

“I’m the hardest hitter on my softball team,” Arya repeats, “I thought that you should know that.”

“Why?” Mya asks. Her face contorts a little in confusion.

"Because if you hurt my sister,” Arya tells her, “I’ll break your face.” Mya stiffens, and Arya can tell that she’s frightened her. Arya takes a bit of sick pleasure in that.

“You’re bluffing,” she says, not all that confidently.

“I might be,” Arya says casually, “and I might not.” Mya looks startled, but she opens up her car door. Arya punches her palm, and Mya tries to avoid her gaze as she drives away.

Arya feels accomplished.

 

Sansa and Mya break up shortly afterward, and Arya feels even more accomplished. Mya probably wouldn’t have been able to handle a long term relationship if she fled at the first little threat.

 

2.

 

If people say that Mya Stone is a player, then they say that Margaery Tyrell is a professional heartbreaker. Margaery is also a huge charmer.

Where Mya was unpolished, but likable, Margaery is so polished and cordial that it almost feels fake. Arya had considered not giving Sansa’s next partner the shovel talk, but Margaery just seems like the sort of girl who would rip Sansa’s heart out and never feel bad about it. Her smile is slippery as a snake’s, and Arya wants to make sure that the girl knows what she’s getting into. Arya wants to make sure that she doesn’t even think about hurting Sansa.

Arya’s shovel talk is a lot more well-polished the second time. Margaery leaves later than Mya did, but not enough that everyone else is leaving. Arya follows her onto the lawn, and grabs her bat from the front porch.

Arya knocks her bat softly against the palm of her hand.

“I wonder how many strokes it would take to beat up a car with this,” Arya says.

“Are you threatening me?” Margaery asks, with a bemused look on her face.

“No,” she says, “I’m threatening your pretty little Camaro.” Arya gently taps her bat against Margaery’s shoulder.

“Should I be threatening you?” Arya asks, leaving her bat pressed against the other girl’s shoulder.

“You can if you want,” Margaery tells her. Arya sends her a confused look as she withdraws her bat.

“I don’t plan on hurting Sansa, not now, not ever,” she says. She doesn’t say it as some grand gesture, and it doesn’t sound fake like everything she’d said at dinner. It sounds like she’s just stating a fact, like rambling off statistics.

Arya isn’t sure why she finds that comforting.

“If I do,” Margaery tells her, and Arya would almost be willing to bet she sincerely means this, “you have my permission to beat me with that bat of yours.” Arya changes her mind about Margaery Tyrell. She thinks that she likes the other girl.

 

3.

 

It’s two days after the dinner with Margaery before Sansa calls her. Arya’s actually a little confused. Sansa normally texts her if she wants to get lunch or something, and that only happens when her sister needs to vent or she wants something.

Sansa _never_ calls her, and Arya is frankly a bit concerned.

“Sansa?” Arya asks.

Sansa’s irate voice floods her ears, “You said what to Margaery?”

“What?” Arya asks, her confusion only growing with her sister’s question.

 “She seemed to think it was funny that you tried to give her the shovel talk,” Sansa adds. Arya doesn’t respond.

Sansa sighs, as her voice softens a little bit.

“Are you trying to scare my girlfriend away?” Sansa asks.

“Not exactly,” Arya says, “I just wanted to make sure that she treats you well.”

“Arya,” she says, “I don’t need you to do that. I can take care of myself.” Arya begs to differ, remembering a boy named Joffrey Baratheon, but she doesn’t say so.

“Alright, Sansa,” she says, but she doesn’t really mean it. If push comes to shove, she’ll still protect her older sister. She hangs up the phone, and hopes that she made the other girl even angrier.

 

4.

 

Trystane Martell has dark skin and even darker hair. He’s charming, too, in the way that makes Shireen blush and makes Arya roll her eyes. He seems like the sort of guy that would slither away after leaving Shireen’s broken heart in the dust.

Arya doesn’t want her to get hurt. And she supposes that if she’s going to threaten Sansa’s significant others, she might as well threaten Shireen’s as well. Shireen’s been her best friend for as long as she can remember, and she wants her to be safe and happy. If she wants to be the one kissing Shireen, telling her how beautiful she is and taking her on dates, she doesn’t let herself dwell on that for long.

 

Arya follows Trystane one day after his Calculus class. Even though it’s bright outside and there are people all around, Trystane still looks like he might wet himself. Arya clutches her baseball bat in her hands.

“If you hurt Shireen,” Arya says, “I might have to put this thing to use.” She tells him. Trystane doesn’t speak to her, and doesn’t look like he remembers how. Arya feels as if she’s done her job.

 

5.

 

Margaery is a little bit hurt and confused when Sansa opts out of their normal dinner time with Alla, Merry and Jeyne because she has to “work”. Margaery is not sure how she feels when she walks back into their apartment at eleven o-clock that night and finds out what exactly that “work” includes. Sansa has at least three tabs open about how to give the shovel talk, and has an microsoft word document half-typed up with her personalized version.

“What are you doing?” Margaery asks, not even sure what emotion she hears in her tone.

“I am figuring out how to give Arya’s future significant other the shovel talk,” Sansa says, as if it’s somehow obvious. Margaery laughs.

“That’s kind of sweet,” Marg tells her.

“I must avenge you,” Sansa says, not bothering to look away from her dimly lit screen. Margaery rolls her eyes.

“Babe,” she says, “you _do_ realize that you’re not scary, right?” Sansa gasps.

“I am too scary,” she says, “Arya scared you, and Arya’s half a head shorter than me.” Arya is also a champion softball player, martial artist, and has a streak for getting into fights. Margaery doesn’t say this out loud, though, and lets Sansa keep her delusions. She hopes that she can explain to Sansa why she’s about as intimidating as a newborn kitten before she tries to give someone like Gendry the shovel talk.

 

6. 

 

“Would you like to go on a date with me?” Arya asks, loudly and quickly. She thinks that her words were so strung together that Shireen might not have been able to understand them, and she feels her face go bright red. Shireen smiles though, and she laughs.

“Of course,” she says, with a small blush of her own, “I was wondering if you’d _ever_ ask.”

 

Dating Shireen isn’t really different than being best friends with Shireen. They still tell each other everything, still make each other laugh. Shireen still rolls her eyes when Arya does something ridiculous, but now when their hands brush, Arya knows it means what she wanted it to mean.

Now they can kiss and fuck as they please, and they don’t have to sleep alone. Now, Arya can say “I love you,” and know that Shireen means it just as much when she says it back.

Now, when Shireen posts a pic of them to her Instagram, she tags it “with the bae” instead of “with the bf”.

Dating Shireen isn’t much different than being best friends with her, but it is somehow, infinitely better.

 

7. 

 

 

“You know,” Sansa drawls, “if you hurt Arya, I will hurt you.”

“Are you trying to give me the shovel talk?” Shireen asks her.

Sansa just looks at her.

“Oh god,” Shireen says, “you are, aren’t you?” Then, the younger girl starts to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Sansa demands.  

“You aren’t scary, Sansa,” Shireen tells her.

“I am terrifying,” Sansa asserts, because she is frankly insulted. Sansa could totally beat Shireen up if she broke Arya’s heart.

“I am very intimidating,” Sansa adds, “like, so intimidating.”

“I’m not sure you would be able to scare a toddler,” Shireen tells her. It doesn’t even sound like an insult, just a statement.

Sansa makes her hand into a fist.

Shireen looks to her kindly, and suggests.

“You should make sure that your thumb hugs your second and third knuckles.” Sansa sends her a confused and frustrated look.

"I took self-defense classes when I was younger,” she says with a little smile as she walks away. Sansa’s jaw drops so far that she thinks that it must be broken.

She is officially less intimidating than Shireen Baratheon. Shireen Baratheon, who volunteers at soup kitchens, who wears sundresses and flower crows to college classes, and who tries to keep Arya out of fights and drags her sister to Disney movies. She’s less intimidating than her.

Sansa has never felt more ashamed.

 

8.

 

It’s nine thirty at night, and Arya doesn’t know who could possibly knocking on the door of her apartment. She answers the door anyway, because she is the sort of girl that does not fear death or strange people at the door. When she opens it, she decides that she really should fear strange people at the door.

“Hello Mr. Baratheon,” she jumbles. She considers slamming the door quickly in his face, fleeing to Dorne and changing her name to Sand, but decides against it quickly enough. If she fled to Dorne, she’d never get to kiss Shireen again and that would be a calamity even worse than having to speak to her father.

“Miss Stark,” he says, and Arya almost lets out an audible groan. This is going to be awkward and terrifying and a great deal of other unpleasant adjectives.

“Shireen told me that you two are dating,” he says curtly. Arya only nods. He raises the item that he has stowed beside him, and presses it against her chest. It takes her a moment to realize what it is.

That is actually an _enormous_ machine gun that’s he’s pressing to her chest. She’s not certain that gun’s actually _legal._

“Don’t hurt her,” he warns, as he withdraws his gun, and his presence from her doorway.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Arya says, her voice gravely and startled. Arya’s adrenaline courses through her veins. She’s never been more frightened in her life.

 

She can’t believe that she put Mya and Margaery through that.

 

9.

 

“I’m sorry, Margaery,” Arya says.

“Wait, what is this that I’m hearing?” Margaery asks sarcastically, “is this Arya Stark, apologizing?”

“Oh shut up,” Arya says as her face turns bright red. She’s suddenly very glad that she decided to have this conversation over the phone.

“What brought this on?” Marg asks.

“Stannis gave me the shovel talk,” Arya says gravely.

“That must have been traumatic,” Margaery agrees.

“I am sorry for putting you through that,” Arya says.

“Well, thank you,” Margaery says, and she sounds sincere. Arya’s gotten to the point where she almost likes her sister’s girlfriend.

“Just wanted to let you know,” Arya says, and then she hangs up the phone. She doesn’t even both putting it into her pocket, and dials Shireen next. She needs to talk to her girlfriend.

“Your father gave me the shovel talk,” Arya says.

“He did?” Shireen asks. Arya isn’t sure if her girlfriend sounds more pleased or annoyed.

Arya starts shaking her head before she remembers that Shireen can’t see her.

“Yeah,” she says, not seeming overly excited about the idea of discussing the matter further. Shireen takes her hint, and quickly changes the subject.

“Sansa tried to give me the shovel talk,” Shireen tells her.

“Really?” Arya asks, and Shireen’s giddy laughter is all that she needs to hear to know that yes, Sansa tried to give her the shovel talk.

“It was like being told off by a bunny!” Shireen giggles. Arya laughs in response. Even the idea of her sister trying to intimidate someone is hilarious. Arya readjusts the position of her phone as Shireen starts to talk about how her day went and the like. She lies down on her couch, and listens to her speak excitedly.

 

She realizes that Margaery has the right idea. She has no business being afraid, because she’d sooner leave Westeros forever than hurt Shireen. Arya laughs loudly at something that Shireen's said, and clutches the phone like a lifeline. 

 

She wouldn't give this up for anything in the world. 


End file.
